Memo to MSPs: 5 ways to ask more from technology partners

How MSPs can claim with much more from their technology partners-service desk and NOC (network operations center)? Here are five steps forward from Continuum Managed Services.

Msp have spent the last decade key pieces of their back-office operations to outsourcing technology partners.  From the desk of service for services of NOC (network operations center), MSPs can choose a range of options for third-party service. But this is much more of a conversation of outsourcing.

Somewhere along the way, MSPs forgot to ask five questions critically important – each of which can significantly affect the bottom line. If you're considering your current technology partners or market research for new partner, be sure to collect these five questions:

1. How can I make my Business more profitable? Too often MSPs get bogged down in technical conversations with potential technological partners. Instead, moving the conversation in dollars and cents. Discuss financial models that drive profitable growth for your business – and determine exactly how potential back-office partner can help you raise your gross margin above traditional levels.

2. How are you innovating – now and in the long run?Make sure you understand the current capabilities of the software and technology partners in the longer term, support and services roadmap. Ask about two years of promising innovations:

Were they delivered on time efficiently, without interruption of MSPs?As did MSPs benefit?What is now the innovation road map?What guarantees are in place to ensure that new innovations continue?

3. How do you blend MSP-centric Software, service and support in a total solution? Some MSPs chase software tools – lots of them. Then jump to a conversation of separate services. Next, explore support options for their customers. Before jumping through three separate circles take a step back and look at things holistically.

What you really need is a partner of end-to-end offering unified management, ubiquitous.

Ubiquitous: your partner back-office needs to give MSPs the ability to remotely monitor, manage, protect and backup any server, desktop or endpoint – using a web-based portal that is accessible from any smart device.Unified: your back-office partner cannot have more tools for multiple platforms. Requires a platform that supports PC, Mac, Windows, Linux and mobile devices. More remote monitoring and management of these systems, be sure to partner solution can back up and restore these systems to business continuity.Management: your partner back-office needs to push beyond the traditional RMM software. Ensure that it is integrated with world renowned NOC (network operations center) and customer support 24/7.

4. What is your vision for the Marketing and sales support?

Suppose the back-office partner can meet your needs for software, service and support. Do not stop here. Request additional services – in areas such as marketing support, lead generation, sales and new business development.

Also, make sure your partner can fulfill their promises of marketing support.

They have hired the right talent to help MSPs with lead generation?What systems and processes have brought to these efforts?There is a long-term commitment to marketing and support sold MSP?

5. How do I avoid complacency – together?

If you have exhausted every available service from your technology partner, so maybe the partner does not innovate quickly enough. You need to fight complacency-market as more and demanding more from your technology partner. Take advantage of every last advantage that the technological partner able to give. Ask at least once per quarter, as you can take the relationship to the next level.

If you don't get the answers you want –-and if you're not seeing the changes you and your customers need--then maybe it's time to shop around for a new technology partner.

Ask me more

If you have any further questions about five tips above, please do not hesitate to contact me. More than 3,300 MSPs exploit our innovation every day, and is holding us responsible for long-range innovations.

Steve Ricketts is VP marketing at Continuum. We provide a platform for SaaS-based managed services that use MSPs to efficiently backup, monitor, troubleshoot and maintain servers, desktops and other endpoint for SMB customers.

LabTech, Integrated Advanced Persistent Threat ThreatTrack Protection

ThreatTrack integrates its Vipre Premium IT Business security antivirus protection Software LabTech remote monitoring and management platform, to provide opportunities for more recurring monthly revenue MSPs trying to sell customers the advanced persistent threat protection.

Julian waits, CEO of security ThreatTrack

ThreatTrack Security, which spun by GFI Software this year, has integrated the Vipre antivirus Premium Business solution with LabTech Software remote monitoring and management platform. The agreement provides MSPs with another way to provide premium services to customers and increase their potential earnings, the company said.  Here are the details.

Most of the integration features of Vipre will put on the management console LabTech's main.  VIPRE Premium solution Business focuses on how organizations to identify and stop threats of advanced global threat landscape. ThreatTrack Security provides advanced persistent threat protection, targeted attacks and other sophisticated malware that can often evade traditional defenses using organizations. The solutions to analyze, detect and repair the latest threats, through his ThreatAnalyzer sandbox malware behavioral analysis, business VIPRE antivirus software and consumer and ThreatIQ real-time threat awareness service.

LabTech CEO Matthew Nachtrab had this to say in a prepared statement on integration: "we are always looking for the best options for our technology partners. Our integration with Vipre creates new opportunities for MSPs to grow their businesses and enhance the value and the service they provide to their customers. "

CEO Julian Waits for security, ThreatTrack prepared statement, noted that the integration will make the solution easier to use for MSPs. but it has also offered potential RMM.

"Fully Integrating Vipre LabTech platform MSPs can more easily deploy and manage the most powerful weapon in their arsenal. With Vipre antivirus as their run defense line, gain an accelerator LabTech MSPs profit significantly, adding a new recurring revenue stream to their portfolio of services and strengthen network security. "

The company announced in conjunction with the automation nation 2013 Conference this week in Orlando.

IBM SmartCloud, PureFlex: MSP double-crossed?

IBM SmartCloud PureFlex systems and will move into the spotlight of the MSP IBM Summit.

IBM GMs Andy Monshaw (left) and Deepak Advani (right) will probably offer PureFlex and SmartCloud updates during a Summit of MSP.

IBM SmartCloud PureFlex systems and will take center stage at the Summit of MSP IBM this week in Las Vegas. The big question: can IBM convince more MSPs to standardize its hardware infrastructure and converging cloud platforms (especially in the midst of acquiring SoftLayer)?

Among the leaders to address these and other problems this week at IBM's Summit:

Andy Monshaw, General Manager, SystemsDeepak Advani PureFlex, general manager, Cloud and intelligent infrastructure

IBM's effort to engage MSPs began in 2011. Original effort involved in data center hardware sales. But IBM has been expanding its focus to include MSP and managed services that can connect MSPs cloud.

Not coincidentally, IBM MSP definition has expanded to include a wide range of companies offering on-and off-premise that IT services. It is clear that IBM is trying to engage everyone from telecommunications systems integrators with its portfolio of hardware, software and managed cloud offerings.

Hardware Giants home servers (Dell, HP, IBM and Sun Oracle) I think IBM has a sharp focus on MSPs. But those are MSPs generating big business for IBM? It's a safe bet Monshaw and Advani will provide updates when they take the stage at the Summit of the 11 June IBM.

How MSPs can monetize effectively managing mobile devices

Mobile device management is growing among the companies with policies to bring-your-own-device in place. But the benefits of BYOD also come with headaches. Here's how MSPs can help customers ensure devices and data while at the same time by adding your own profitability.

The service sector is all about understanding the customer's needs and offering the best possible solution in a given situation. It is absolutely essential to understand the trends and changing needs of the marketplace for customers of the service. One such trend is the management of mobile devices.  Although MSPs have actively provided and solutions for infrastructure management, growth in the use of employee-owned devices such as Smartphones or tablets in the workplace, more commonly called BYOD, has created new challenges for organizations to manage.

Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of the employers in the world requires employees to bring their devices to work. According to the report, "BYOD is occurring in companies and Governments of all sizes, is more prevalent in organizations of medium and large ($ 500 million to $ 5 billion in revenue, with 2,500 to 5,000 employees).

BYOD also allows smaller companies to go mobile without a huge device and service investment. Adoption varies widely throughout the world. Companies in the United States are twice as likely to allow BYOD like those in Europe, where the adoption BYOD lowest of all regions. In contrast, employees in India, China and Brazil are more likely to be using a personal device, typically a normal mobile phone, at work. (Here's a link to the Gartner information).

This is the right opportunity for MSPs?

Compared to desktop computers, mobile devices have shown a strong growing market worldwide, which made the workforce more mobile today than ever before. The concept of a BYOD created challenges for organizations in terms of data security, application management and network security. Msp can play an important role in providing MDM as a service, and removing the load from the enterprise.

It is important for MSPs to analyze and interpret customer needs to ensure that the opportunity for MDM is ripe. Some of the questions may ask before pitching MDM might include:

Customers any mobile management challenges?Are there any mobile based on requests from customers? If the answer is Yes, then what is the reason.It will be a sound business opportunity?

If MSPs can find satisfactory answers to these questions, you could easily cash in on the opportunity. As evident from the forecasts of market analysts, organizations began to look for MSP that can offer end-to-end services for systems and mobile device management.

Create awareness:MSPs must play an active role in educating users about security issues that are involved in managing the device and how the MSPs can meet these demands.

As a consultant, MSPs must understand the challenges and propose solutions that can meet these challenges. For example, some of the pain points for customers who may have data security, access to information and provision of BYOD. Find the area of interest and start a conversation to clear their doubts and questions and propose the right solution.

Pricing and packaging strategy:         

More medium-sized MSPs limit their range of desktop management services/anti-virus management and patch management services. There are several other services such as mobile device management and content management that may not yet have been explored.

The biggest problem for most organizations is data security in Device Manager. Create a package with different levels of functionality. Introduce a package of integrated management that can help in the management of desktop and mobile devices. A basic package may contain maximum desktop management features and device management functionality needed as security management including pass-code policy, remote data deletion and blocking, etc.

Flexible packaging: The Service Pack must be designed with the 80 per cent of the core features such as security management and the 20 percent by adding features such as application management. Msp can provide further layers as the mobile application management, configuration profile or report generation and their package as an Advanced Edition.

The advantage lies in broadening the range of services and this expansion enables MSPs looking for new opportunities to increase revenue, while using know-how gained from the operation of specific vertical markets.

Prices: Create a value based on the pricing strategy and then let customers perceive the importance of the services that offer MSPs. For example, create different editions of price points, each variation with its offerings/hallmarks along with desktop management features that should be available in every Variant.

For example, a form might have the necessary security management, and another variant could you add on modules such as application management. These packages of different sizes can increase your chances of MSPs to serve customers of different sizes.

In order to grasp the opportunities in the market today, MSPs should study and analyse future trends to understand how the growth in the mobile industry is going to affect them, how to deal with the change in the nature of customer needs, such as going to the workload by companies and organisations to concern them.This knowledge will help MSPs address the growing challenges on the client side.

Vijay Saradhi, is offering a Marketing Analyst at ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp., where he manages the product marketing for its Desktop & Managementsolution Mobile Device. Has expertise on it, services and products with 4 years experience. You can contact him

Zenith Infotech Promotes Sales Leader, Nears 1,000 Cloud Installs

AppId is over the quota

Zenith Infotech promosso John McCallum per condurre vendite e installa TigerCloud si avvicina 1000 partner e clienti, dice CEO Akash Saraf.

Zenith Infotech CEO Akash Saraf (a sinistra) dice che John McCallum (medio) riesce Maurice Saluan (a destra) come capo di vendite dell'azienda cloud.

Zenith Infotech ha promosso John McCallum a VP of sales - riuscendo Senior VP Maurice Saluan, dimessosi il 1 giugno per perseguire opportunità altrove nel canale IT. Inoltre, TigerCloud di Zenith Infotech - che autorizza MSPs con cloud e servizi IaaS - si avvicina a 1.000 clienti e partner installa, una pietra miliare come l'azienda cerca di spingere oltre i tradizionali servizi BDR (backup e disaster recovery).

Zenith Infotech CEO Akash Saraf ha confermato la promozione di McCallum e il TigerCloud installare statistiche via email a MSPmentor. "John ha lavorato sotto Maurice per un certo numero di anni e siamo fiduciosi che egli sarà in grado di fare un buon lavoro come VP of sales," ha scritto Saraf.

Separatamente, Zenith Infotech entro settimane prevede di colpire 1.000 installazioni di TigerCloud, "che è un bel risultato dato che abbiamo lanciato questo prodotto nel maggio 2012," ha scritto Saraf. "Fino a data suo stato utilizzato per le installazioni on-premise cloud privato con il driver primario essendo VDI e un'infrastruttura IT piena soffiata."

"Con la versione più recente," ha continuato, "abbiamo aggiunto multi-tenancy, per cui partner pu? costruire il proprio mini cloud pubblico. Ci aspettiamo che nei prossimi sei mesi per avere oltre 250 IT service provider propri cloud computing pubblico utilizzando TigerCloud."

Domanda su predefinito di debito di Zenith Infotech 2011, Saraf ha detto che non aveva nessuna informazione nuova per condividere sul caso di Corte in corso della società.

Tiến adds security capabilities PowerBroker for Windows 6.0

Security solutions provider Ti?n was announced for Windows 6.0, adding new session and monitoring capacity of its intelligence and security access control providing Microsoft Windows infrastructure for the integrity of the file.

Product strategy and operations ti?n EVP Brad Hibbert said in his prepared speech that the updating of the product allows administrators to make decisions "more effective."

Security solutions provider Ti?n was announced for Windows 6.0, adding session-file-integrity monitoring and analytics deployments and drive greater policy context-aware security intelligence for Windows infrastructure environments of Microsoft (MSFT). This solution uses Retina CS Threat Management Console of society to help assess the overall risk of a system to help administrators decide what privileges must be assigned to a user or system. What's included in this version of PowerBroker? We will reveal the details.

The new version of PowerBroker relies on Ti?n's vision for addressing the security challenges reviews by providing security and compliance solutions.

With this in mind, the following features have been added to the latest version of PowerBroker:

Monitoring session-Ti?n customers can record user activity depending on the application. This ability is essential in the work of troubleshooting and forensics;

File integrity monitoring-this feature adds an additional level of security, allowing or denying access to modify the files in the directory. Access can be targeted to applications or users.

Deploying policies of retina CS-CS Retina can now be used to store and distribute the PowerBroker policy for Windows 6.0. Group policies are no longer necessary (but can still be used), which provides a single pane of glass to create reports and politics through the Retina CS; and

Redesigned user interface "Metro" with a new Windows 8 "Metro" UI theme, guests enjoy a modern look, with more intuitive dashboards and easy to navigate. Product strategy and operations ti?n EVP Brad Hibbert said in his prepared speech that the updating of the product allows administrators to make decisions "more effective."

"Security Teams more often critical business decisions based on threats after the fact, regardless of context, addressing these threats," he said.

For Windows 6.0 is available as a free update for existing customers.

This week's announcement from Microsoft TechEd conference follows on the latest version of the company. Ti?n released its remained for Windows 5.5 back in January 2013.

The Power of Social Media for Sales People

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota

Sales people who use social media exceed their quota 23 percent more often than sales people who don't use it. Indeed, non-social media users missed their quota 15 percent more often than sales reps who used social media.

Sales is something every organization needs. Here at CharTec, we strive to make sure sales people are extremely well trained. Sales is a profession -- one that requires reading, training, and constant learning. “This isn’t something you’re born with; you have to train to become a great salesperson, just like any other profession,” says Alex Rogers, CEO of CharTec.

He is right. A sales professional should always be learning and evolving his/her sales tactics to make the sale in a changing economy. So, what does that mean to your sales staff in the digital age of selling? With software from ConnectWise to SalesForce, sales people are using technology to make their lives easier. So, where does social media fall into place with all of this? The correct answer may surprise you.

According to the Social Media and Sales Quota report from the A Sales Guy Consulting and Social Centered Selling, 50 percent of sales people surveyed spend between 5 percent to 10 percent of their time utilizing social media for sales. These sales people exceed quota 23 percent more often than non-social media users. Non-social media users also missed quota 15 percent more often than sales persons who were utilizing social media.

People are utilizing social media for networking, prospecting, research, referral building, and closing. What are you utilizing social media for in your sales team? Forbes Magazine gives you 5 steps for making a sale through social media:

Step 1: Join a community and create a persona- Utilize blogs, forums, and LinkedIn groups. You can always make a group and encourage people to join it! Make sure to have variety. You’re not going to get leads and prospects by only joining groups that focus on IT. Show your tech savvy knowledge in local and community groups. Dominate and be the expert people seek.

Step 2: Determine the best way to connect with prospects- If everyone your prospecting is on Twitter, guess what, you’d better be on Twitter! Make sure you’re connecting with prospects on the platforms that make sense.

Step 3: Connect- Be sure to individually connect with others around your community. Look through that pile of business cards from your last event and see who is on LinkedIn and other social networks and connect with them.

Step 4: Build a relationship- Now that you have connected, work on building that relationship. Give value, share information, invite to lunch… you know, the primary reason you have company credit cards and expense reports.

Step 5: Engage in a conversation- Work your network. If you have someone who knows another connection, ask for an introduction or utilize your network for referrals. Build the conversation (not generic, but meaningful), use Google stalking to its finest.

Use these 5 steps to spark your social media success! For more tips on sales and social media, we invite you to become a CharTec partner and attend one of our CharTec Academies.

Gabe Ulloa is interactive media and marketing event coordinator at CharTec, which offers HaaS, BDR and training services to MSPs. Monthly guest blogs such as this one are part of MSPmentor's annual platinum sponsorship.